As a scammer, sometimes you need to fake it till you make it.

Unidentified Person: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.

Unidentified Person: I'll explain. And I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand you, wart hog faced buffoon.

Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special edition of the "Hacking Humans Podcast." An occasional series we call "Hacking Humans Goes to the Movies." I'm Dave Bittner, and joining me is my cyber wire colleague, Rick Howard. Hello, Rick.

Rick Howard: Hey, Dave.

Dave Bittner: On this show, Rick and I look at some of our favorite clips from cinema and television. Clips which demonstrates some of the scams and schemes that Joe Kerrigan and I talk about on "Hacking Humans." We've got some fun clips to share, so stay tuned. We'll be right back after this message from our show sponsor. All right, Rick. We've got some good stuff to share this week.

Rick Howard: Yes, we do.

Dave Bittner: These are some fun ones, and I'm going to lead things off here. My clip this time comes from one of my most favorite films in the world, and that is "The Princess Bride."

Rick Howard: Oh, yes. [Laughter] Okay. Are you kidding me? I love that movie.

Dave Bittner: Well, I was going to say, Rick, what do you think of this movie?

[ Laughter ]

Dave Bittner: How many times have I watched it? What, 20, 30 times --

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: -- in my lifetime?

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: Must be. I- yeah. Right.

Dave Bittner: It's one of those movies that if you're flipping through channels, and it's on you just have to stop --

Rick Howard: Hm-mmm.

Dave Bittner: -- and watch the rest of it. Right?

Rick Howard: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Dave Bittner: So --

Rick Howard: Wait. Wait, the sword fight's coming on. Oh, yeah.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: I'm going to stop and watch that, or yeah, whatever.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, exactly.

[ Laughter ]

Dave Bittner: "For those handful of folks in the world who may not be familiar with this gem of a film, this is a 1987 American fantasy adventure." I'm reading from Wikipedia by the way.

Rick Howard: The authoritative source, yes.

Dave Bittner: It was directed and coproduced, yep, directed and coproduced by Rob Reiner. Starring Carrie LL Uls? I can never say his last name right.

Rick Howard: Me neither.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: Me neither.

Dave Bittner: Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Susan's brother, Wallace Shawn, Andre, the Giant, and Christopher Guest. And this is from the 1973 novel by William Goldman.

Rick Howard: Which I've read, by the way.

David Bittner: I have too. I have too. [Laughter] Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I'm trying to think- no. I did read the book after I saw the movie.

Rick Howard: Yeah. Yeah, much after for me. Yeah.

Dave Bittner: It says- it tells the story of a swashbuckling farmhand named Wesley, accompanied by companions be- befriended along the way who must rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup from the odious Prince Humperdinck. The film preserves [laughter] the novel's meta fictional narrative style by presenting the story as a book being read by a grandfather to his sick grandson.

Rick Howard: Mm-hmm.

Dave Bittner: So a delightful movie, a fun movie, funny. There's action, there's something for everyone here. A real cult classic. So this clip comes from toward the end of the film. And in this scene, Wesley, who has taken on the persona of the Dread Pirate Roberts, he, along with Inigo Montoya and Fezzik [assumed spelling] have infiltrated the castle of the evil Prince Humperdinck. And Prince Humperdinck, has plans to kill Princess Buttercup, so he can blame the neighboring country of Guilder and start a war with them. And Wesley is in very bad shape at this point in the film. He's been drained of most of his life by the six fingered man's torture device, the big part of the [laughter] film. He's been brought back to life by Miracle Max played by Billy Crystal.

Rick Howard: Of course.

Dave Bittner: Another iconic scene. So as we join this scene, Wesley.

Rick Howard: He told me merely dead or whatever the thing is.

Dave Bittner: Right. Right. He's mostly dead, mostly dead.

Rick Howard: Mostly dead. [Laughter]

Dave Bittner: Which is a little alive. So as we join this scene, Wesley is lying on a bed. He is too weak to move. Buttercup is comforting him, she's sitting by his side, and Wesley is reassuring her that she's not actually married to Prince Humperdinck. Into the room comes Prince Humperdinck, and we have this confrontation.

Unidentified Person: He didn't say it, he didn't do it. Wouldn't you agree, Your Highness?

Unidentified Person: A technicality that will shortly be remedied. But first things first. [Music] To the death now.

Dave Bittner: He pulls out a sword.

Unidentified Person: To the pain.

Unidentified Person: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.

Unidentified Person: I'll explain. And I'll use small words so that you will be sure to understand, you wart hog faced buffoon.

Unidentified Person: [Laughter] That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.

Unidentified Person: It won't be the last. To the pain is the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrist, next your nose.

Unidentified Person: And then my tongue, I suppose. I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.

Unidentified Person: I wasn't finished. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right.

Unidentified Person: And then my ears. I understand. Let's get on with it.

Unidentified Person: Wrong. [Laughter] Your ears you keep, and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, dear God, what is that thing, will echo in your perfect ears. That is what the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish wallowing in freakish misery forever.

Unidentified Person: I think you're bluffing.

Unidentified Person: It's possible, pig. I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable vomitus mass. I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. Then again, perhaps I have the strength after all.

Dave Bittner: Lifts up out of the bed, raises his sword toward Prince Humperdinck.

Unidentified Person: Your sword.

[ Laughter ]

Unidentified Person: Have a seat.

Rick Howard: And Humperdinck drops the sword, run to the chair.

Dave Bittner: And meek- meekly sit down.

Rick Howard: Right.

[ Laughter ]

Rick Howard: I love it.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: I love that scene.

Dave Bittner: So a little bit an deception here, Rick. Where would it- describe to us well, what's- what exactly is- pre- Prince Wesley doing here to Prince Humperdinck?

Rick Howard: This is the classic hacker social engineer move. Okay.

Dave Bittner: Mm-hmm.

Rick Howard: Fake it till you make it, right? [Laughter] Just assume and act like you know what you're doing. Okay. And then hopefully everybody will leave you alone and believe the story you're trying to tell. Right? And what I love about that scene is that everybody that's watching the movie knows that he can't possibly even barely lift that sword. Right?

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: We're going, what the hell is he doing here? What- how is he pressed on this advantage? And of course it works brilliantly.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah. I just- but a note here on the acting here. Cary, the actor who plays Wesley, during his entire speech to Prince Humperdinck, as he's, you know, spewing these invectives towards him. You know, [laughter] you try love. He does not blink once.

Rick Howard: Oh.

Dave Bittner: He is dead stiff. If you watch the clip again, he is dead staring at him, and he does not blink once. And it is just as you say, it's one of those intimidating things where you can have the psychological advantage over your adversary. And that's 100 percent what this is, right?

Rick Howard: Yeah. Because the whole story of the "Dread Pirate Roberts," is that he's this fantastic swordsman, right? And he's a legend in the land. And so when he says, "I'm going to do all these horrible things to you, Prince Humperdinck." And he gives it with such force, Prince Humperdinck does nothing but yell, "Okay, I believe him." [Laughter].

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: I believe him completely.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. It's also interesting how Prince Humperdinck tries to call him on his bluff, and he doubles down and even say- calls it out and says, "perhaps I'm too weak to move." But, you know, do you want to risk that?

Rick Howard: Mm-hmm.

Dave Bittner: And just, it's just a strength of personality, I think. And certainly.

Rick Howard: I think it's also a mark of a great con man, all right. Because if I would have run into that situation, somebody called me on the bluff, I would have folded like a paper tissue, right? But [laughter] he takes it to the next level, right? And he says he keeps pushing it until he can absolutely not push it anymore, and ultimately wins. All right. So I guess that's the thing. Never give up. Never --

Dave Bittner: Right. [Laughter]

Rick Howard: -- ever, ever give up, right?

Dave Bittner: Stick with the con, double down. Yeah. Although in this case, Wesley is able to get out of or lift himself up out of the bed, at least temporarily, muster --

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: -- enough strength to, well, to continue the con. Because the truth is, he is too weak to fight.

Rick Howard: Right.

Dave Bittner: But he's at least he can do this one thing. Yeah.

Rick Howard: Awesome stuff, man.

Dave Bittner: It's a great movie. And I could watch it over and over again. I could watch this one scene over and over again. It's just from start to finish, it's just a wonderful film. And I imagine most of the people in our audience here are vigorously nodding their heads in agreement [laughter] of how much they love this movie.

Rick Howard: Yeah. If you excuse me, let me just go watch it right now. I'll be right back, [laughter] Dave, so.

Dave Bittner: Okay. We're gonna take a two hour break while Rick goes and watches the rest of "Princess Bride." We'll be right back after this long message from our sponsor. All right. That is what I have this time. Rick, what do you have for us?

Rick Howard: All right. So my clip this week is from the 2016 movie, "Now You See Me Too," directed by Jon Chu. He's the guy that directed "Crazy Rich Aliens," and the musical "Into the Heights," that came out during the COVID years.

Dave Bittner: Did you say "Crazy Rich Aliens?"

Rick Howard: Yeah, that's the name of it, right?

Dave Bittner: Is it

Rick Howard: Crazy rich? Oh, Asians.

[ Laughter ]

Rick Howard: Spell check.

Dave Bittner: [Laughter] I want to say, I remember going to the theater and seeing a movie called "Crazy Rich Asians," and perhaps there was a sequel that I missed. It went in a different direction.

Rick Howard: I want to see Crazy Rich Aliens, now that I mention it.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, well, there you go. There's an idea. I did enjoy "Crazy Rich Asians." I thought that was a funny- fun flick.

Rick Howard: So did I. I loved it.

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.

Rick Howard: All right. So this movie is a sequel to the 2013, "Now You See Me," and the plot has four professional magicians using their skills to outcon a con men. They are called in the movie, the Four Horsemen, and they're played by Jesse Eisenberg known for the social network in "Zombieland," one of my favorite zombie movies. Dave Franco for "Superbad," and "21 Jump Street." Woody Harrelson from one of our favorite TV shows, Dave, "Cheers," and "Zombieland." Okay?

Dave Bittner: Right.

Rick Howard: And Lizzie Kaplan, known for "True Blood," and "Masters of Sex." And in this scene, the Four Horsemen have a mission to steal a highly sophisticated processing card installed in an advanced computer system, you know, for reasons.

Dave Bittner: [Laughter] Right. And of course.

Rick Howard: Of course.

Dave Bittner: Of course, the plot demands it. Yeah. Right.

Rick Howard: So they have to walk into a highly secure data processing room in broad daylight, with at least four guards wearing grey uniforms. And at least three technicians wearing white lab coats. And they say at least because I can't tell how many people are in there from the clip, there's a bunch. [Laughter] And a facilities director wearing a suit, and there is a sensitive walk through metal detector that makes sure nobody coming in and out of the room has any metal. And that will be an important plot point at the end of this. So, and this is really complicated, Dave, so you're gonna have to help me explain all these things. There's lots of moves going on, so we'll give it a roll, so.

Dave Bittner: All right. [Music] So we're starting off here. Like, now my initial impression is to having not seen the movie is that this is one of those classic kind of underground bunkers, you know, lit- that's --

Rick Howard: Yeah.

David Bittner: -- lots of fluorescent lighting and everything's high tech and metal and glass and fluorescence. And as you say there's this giant, like, the world's most sophisticated airport [laughter] scanner that you have to go through to get into this highly secure area with all these guards around. So as you pick up the clip, that's where they are.

Rick Howard: Yeah. It's like an Apple store on steroids, only, like, [laughter] seven floors underground. Okay. so.

Dave Bittner: Right. Exactly. That's a good description. All right. Let's play the clip.

Rick Howard: All right. So Kaplan is the first one through the door and she is dressed provocatively in a short leather skirt and [background speaking] wearing a lush red lipstick. Her outfit will be important later. Okay, so keep that in mind.

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Unidentified Person: Taught.

Unidentified Person: It's good. Did you just find a source somewhere?

Unidentified Person: New bio.

Unidentified Person: It's good. Thank you. Okay.

Unidentified Person: There we go.

Dave Bittner: So everybody is kind of, as you do in an airport line, they're taking off any part of their clothing that would have metal elements, like, their belts --

Rick Howard: Right.

Dave Bittner: -- and their watches.

Rick Howard: Yep. And, yeah, exactly.

Unidentified Person: Okay. There we go.

Rick Howard: And next is Harrelson through the [detector sound] detector, and then Franco [detector sound] who gets stopped by the metal detector because he on purpose forgets to remove his wallet.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Dave Bittner: So they send him back through.

Rick Howard: He hands the wallet to the guard?

Dave Bittner: And he gets a green light.

Rick Howard: Yep.

Dave Bittner: And Eisenberg --

Rick Howard: And that's going to be important later.

Dave Bittner: Okay. Eisenberg makes it through too.

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Unidentified Person: I don't know.

Rick Howard: They walk into the big room.

Unidentified Person: This is the housing, 820 million cubic miles of digisynaptic resonance.

David Bittner: So what are we seeing at the center of the room here, Rick?

Rick Howard: So that's the big computer that we- I was talking about before and the director is gonna explain its function here in a second. But it's --

David Bittner: Okay.

Rick Howard: -- like you said it's the Apple's- it's the Apple room.

Dave Bittner: Right? It's- yeah. It's all white except for the computer that's all black, right?

Rick Howard: Yeah. [Laughter]

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Unidentified Person: Anything else on the planet?

Unidentified Person: It's the processor, which we playfully refer to as the magic broomstick.

Unidentified Person: The broomstick?

Unidentified Person: It has the power to clear the contents of any computing system on the planet, and then magically sweep them into your bin.

Unidentified Person: Oh, broomstick. Funny.

Unidentified Person: Take a look, vet it however you'd like. Until Hannass will be taking bids on Monday. [Sneezing]

Unidentified Person: Thank you.

Rick Howard: So that's Harrelson --

Unidentified Person: Oh, my God, I must be allergic to something.

Rick Howard: -- starting to sneeze causing the first diversion possibly.

Dave Bittner: Mm-hmm.

Unidentified Person: How could you possibly be allergic to anything. This room is hermetically sealed.

Unidentified Person: [Sneezing] That's it. I'm allergic to hermetic seals.

Unidentified Person: That does happen.

Unidentified Person: Would you get him away from the computer, please?

Unidentified Person: That's the one thing that --

Unidentified Person: Just until he recovers --

Rick Howard: I'm allergic to hermetically sealed.

Rick Howard: So the director walks him --

Dave Bittner: So they pull him to the side.

Rick Howard: Right. And the guards and technicians [music] go with him. Kaplan pulls out a plastic hair clip from her head and hands it to Franco.

Unidentified Person: Take his medicine.

Rick Howard: And then, Franco dives underneath the big computer. Okay. while everybody's paying attention to Harrelson. And while he's under there, he's using that plastic clip to unlock a panel.

Unidentified Person: All right.

Unidentified Person: Oh, here you go.

Unidentified Person: If you're done, don't worry about this.

Unidentified Person: I know.

Unidentified Person: Okay. I'm okay. This happens sometimes.

Dave Bittner: Meanwhile Harrelson's keeping everybody --

Unidentified Person: Allergies.

Dave Bittner: -- busy.

Unidentified Person: Nothing you can do.

Unidentified Person: Yeah.

Unidentified Person: Well, something you could do, Doctor.

[ Screaming, music ]

Unidentified Person: What's up? What's up?

[ Screaming, music ]

[ Unidentified speaker, music ]

Rick Howard: Franco gets the card, and now he attaches it to a metal magnetic ace of spades playing card.

Dave Bittner: Oh, okay.

Rick Howard: Magnetic is important here, all right?

Dave Bittner: Right. These guys are magicians.

Rick Howard: Yes, right. And he closes the panel up, just as Harrelson has recovered from his sneezing fit and everybody returns to the center of the room.

Unidentified Person: Section please.

Rick Howard: And then Franco shows up, right, where he was, spot.

Unidentified Person: Okay. I want to run full diagnostics on the --

Rick Howard: The director suspects something and tells the guard to search him. All right. So stop the tape for a second, Dave.

Dave Bittner: Mm-hmm.

Rick Howard: All right. So this begins this elaborate set piece. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a- they- magician's call it juggling cards or something called cardistry, right? And it is a- this scene, this four minute scene is like a whirlwind demonstration of sleight of hand, palming, back palming, sleeve manipulation, card vanishing, card skipping, and pickpocket techniques. All right. We're gonna try to outline all of these as we go through this, right?

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Rick Howard: So go ahead, roll the tape.

Unidentified Person: [Music] Fardi.

Rick Howard: So the guard has Franco hold up his hands and arms facing in. The camera can clearly see the ace in Franco's hand hidden from the guard. The card has Franco flip his hand palm out and Franco quickly back palms the ace held by spaces between his finger. All right. The guard has Franco turn around, and Franco's covers the card with his other hand and places, pause it there. Way behind here.

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: All right. So the guard has Franco turn around and Franco covers the card with his hand and places both hands on top of his head. The guard has him stretch his arms out to each side of the room, and Franco palms the ace one more time. As the guard moves to the front of Franco and Franco quickly back palms the ace again. Right? And then as the guard moves down Franco's body to search his pants, Franco flips the ace in the air towards his mouth. He sucks air in and captures the card on his lips. And the- then spits the ace down his bicep to the crook of his arm, right, pointing his hand up in hiding the card from the guard right now.

Dave Bittner: Right.

Rick Howard: I told Dave this before we started filming this, these are all real techniques. Okay. This is not fake. This is not CGI. Hollywood magic re, okay. The actors and the stunt doubles in the scene did all these things. It might have taken them a hundred times to get it right, but they actually performed all these stunts, right? So --

Dave Bittner: Wow.

Rick Howard: -- yeah. Fascinating. All right. So roll the tape again.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. So he just flung the card to one of the other guys [music] on the other side of the room, right? [Background talk]

Rick Howard: Yeah, he does this cardistry move, sending the ace across the room behind the mainframe in a looping arc. Just like you might throw a Frisbee. Again, it took 'em 200 times to get that right, but they actually filmed it.

Dave Bittner: Okay.

Rick Howard: Right. The camera follows the card around the mainframe and right into the right hand of Eisenberg who is also being frisked by another guard. Eisenberg palms the ace, just like Franco, and then sends the ace down his sleeve, moving the card away from the guard as he gets frisked. He slides the card out of his other sleeve and then lets it drop on the floor.

Unidentified Person: Hey, I can walk on my own.

Rick Howard: Kaplen nonchalantly steps on the card and picks it up with a solar for high heeled shoes, and then fakes a fall into another guard where she grabs the ace from her shoe with her right hand.

Rick Howard: She looks at both Eisenberg and Harrelson to flip the car to them, but they wave her off because it's too risky. She palms the card as the guard tells her to raise her arms. She places the ace behind her hair and then down the front of her dress. The guard starts to look down her dress from the carding, Kaplan backs 'em off.

Unidentified Person: Hey. Do that myself.

Rick Howard: She unhooks her bra and pulls it out from her dress. And this completely disarms the guards who don't know what to make of her at all. Right?

Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.

Rick Howard: She shows the bra to the guard by flipping it frontwards and backwards and each time hiding the ace behind --

Unidentified Person: Hey.

Rick Howard: -- the bra. [Whistle sound] And then flips the bra across the floor.

Unidentified Person: My eyes are up here, man. How's do you like it?

Rick Howard: And the guard walks away and she slaps him on the backside and puts the ace in the guard's utility belt. As he walks by Harrelson, Harrelson pickpockets the card from the belt, palms it, coughs into his palm and attaches the car to a small rubber band system in a fake tip of his finger. And as he stretches his arms out to each side of [background talk] the room from his fingers, touching Eisenberg who's doing the same thing, Eisenberg pulls on Harrelson fake --

Unidentified Person: Turn around.

Rick Howard: -- fingertip attached to the rubber band, and the card travels through Harrelson's right sleeve across his body out to the left sleeve and into Eisenberg's right hand. The guard notices something and starts to search Eisenberg, but he has attached the ace magnetically to the inside of his suit jacket. The lining of the jacket is the same pattern as the outside of the ace and the card appears to disappear to vanish.

Dave Bittner: Oh, yeah, like camouflage.

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Unidentified Person: Oh, we're walking this way again. Yay.

Rick Howard: As the guards are walking the four horsemen out of the room, Eisenberg flips the ace to Harrelson who flips the card to Kaplan.

Unidentified Person: The language.

See, what did I tell you, man? He didn't have anything.

Rick Howard: Who flips the card to Franco.

Unidentified Person: Thanks, pal. Appreciate that.

Rick Howard: So Kaplan is in the lead going out the room, then Eisenberg followed by Franco, and followed by Harrelson at the end. Franco flips the ace behind him and Harrelson makes an almost diving catch for it with his hat and tells the guards that he's doing a dance.

Unidentified Person: That's a little better. Big white dance floor, makes me want to boogie. Thanks for having us. It's great stuff.

Rick Howard: Now they have to walk through the metal detector.

Unidentified Person: Jimmy, all night.

Dave Bittner: Oh, on the way out?

Rick Howard: On the way out.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. And who has the card now?

Rick Howard: Harrelson has the card, all right?

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: So Eisenberg goes through.

Unidentified Person: Donjon.

Unidentified Person: Okay.

Unidentified Person: Do I have all my things? I feel like I came in with more stuff. Did I come in with more --

Unidentified Person: [Foreign language].

Unidentified Person: -- You don't think so.

Rick Howard: Kaplan goes through.

Unidentified Person: Okay. [Foreign language].

Rick Howard: And just --

Unidentified Person: Sir, I think you still have my wallet. Remember, I gave it to you when I came in? It would be nice to leave with it.

Unidentified Person: Want to come in through?

[ Foreign language ]

Rick Howard: All right. This is awesome. All right. Just as the wallet goes through [background talk] and sets off the alarm, Eisenberg bangs on a gong declaration in the lobby as a diversion, everybody looks in his direction. And Harrelson skips the ace across the floor in through the detector, just as the wallet goes through, right into Kaplan's fur coat. And done, caper is complete.

Dave Bittner: Whoo. [Laughter] Okay, wow.

Rick Howard: What do you make of that, Dave? Oh, my God.

Dave Bittner: Okay. So let me come at this from two different directions. First of all, this is a lot of fun. And you're right, all of the sleight of hand. It's all things that if you're a fan of magic, and I am. You've seen magicians do this sort of card manipulation, where they, you know, they can turn their hands forward and back and up and down. And they're somehow they're holding a card, but you don't see it. And that's what they're doing here. This is kind of, like, a greatest hits for every possible card manipulation, and distraction, misdirection, I guess, of the folks in the room that there could be. I have to say, I've never seen this movie before. And while I was watching it, it got a little silly to me. [Laughter] Right? Like, I am all for suspending my disbelief and all that kind of stuff. And I think what I have, again, I have not seen this movie so I suspect that this is one of those movies where there's a lot of suspending of disbelief.

Rick Howard: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Bittner: But great fun, great fun. What was your take on it?

Rick Howard: Well, when I saw it, too, I had the similar first reaction. But then like I said at the beginning of this, I said, well, how much of this would just movie magic and, you know, where we have to, like, putting superheroes in, you know, muscle suits, right?

Dave Bittner: Right. Right.

Rick Howard: Is how much of this could actually work? And I stumbled on that clip from David Copperfield, the famous magician who's --

Dave Bittner: Yeah.

Rick Howard: -- has been around forever. And he was the one of the assistants on this movie with one of his producers. And he explained all the tricks, and so I could actually see them and he said, "Yes, the actors did all the palming and the back palming and even some of the cards skipping, and some of the extras, did some of that card flipping. So all of those tricks were actually done. Okay. And he said, you know, I wouldn't recommend doing them in real life, especially in a four minute sequence when all of them were done, because you probably won't be successful, but --

Dave Bittner: Right.

Rick Howard: -- he says that all of that was true and could be done. So I [laughing] raised my impression of the movie.

Dave Bittner: I Guess that's part of it is that there are so many things where they have basically a one in a million chance of --

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: -- making this work. And --

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: - every time it works, and that's --

Rick Howard: Yeah.

Dave Bittner: -- part of the thrill, but again, you have to be for me I had to be pretty liberal with my suspension of disbelief to make that happen. This movie was a hit. It made it several hundred million dollars when it came out a few years back.

Rick Howard: Well, and I will just point out a couple of things too, especially if someone's trying to do a con on you. They use a number of techniques besides the trickery, right?

Dave Bittner: Mm-hmm.

Rick Howard: But, you know, a number of diversions, Harrelson sneezing, Kaplan's bra, Eisenberg's --

Dave Bittner: Right.

Rick Howard: -- banging on the going. And all of that is to misdirect you to something else while they do some shenanigans with the card. Right?

Dave Bittner: Mm-hmm.

Rick Howard: And so that stuff is real enough. And I kind of like that.

Dave Bittner: Yeah. And all of these folks were already on guard. They were suspicious.

Rick Howard: Yes.

Dave Bittner: So it's not like they were coming into some room where there was a bunch of folks who, you know, weren't in- weren't up to the fact that maybe something could be going on, which makes- which heightens the tension even more.

Rick Howard: Well, I've seen both of these movies, and there are a lot of fun. Okay. I don't think any of them will get an Oscar for any of this. Right? [Laughter] But if you're looking for a lightweight movie to watch on the Saturday, a rainy Saturday afternoon, I recommend both of these. Okay.

Dave Bittner: All right. It's "Now You See Me Too." Should you watch "Now You See Me," one before you watch two? Is that --

Rick Howard: You don't have to. Okay. So [laughing] it's not that kind of movie.

Dave Bittner: You couldn't be missing out on any great plot points in between?

Rick Howard: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Dave Bittner: Okay. Fair enough.

Dave Bittner: All right. Well, that is our show. We want to thank all of you for listening. Our thanks to the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute for their participation. The "Hacking Humans Podcast," is proudly produced in Maryland at the Startup Studios of Data Tribe, where they're co building the next generation of cybersecurity teams and technologies. Our senior producer is Jennifer Eiben. Our executive editor is Peter Kilpey. [Assumed spelling] I'm Dave Bittner.

Rick Howard: And I'm Rick Howard.

Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening.